The Castle Corona Read online

  Enzio raced down the dirt path to the marketplace, happy to be out of Master Pangini’s sight, but sorry that Pia remained under the master’s eye. It was a beautiful day: deep blue sky and a breeze spinning scents of fresh fruits and flowers through the air.

  Rocco was leaning against the stall, chatting with a peasant girl. He was a short, stout young man, lazy but good-humored. Rocco handed his apron, with its deep pockets jingling with change, over to Enzio and winked at the girl.

  Enzio savored this time at the stall, away from the master, watching the people come and go, listening to the lively gossip, greeting familiar faces. Villagers called him “antelope boy,” for his lean, agile swiftness.

  An old man greeted him that way now. “Antelope boy! You have melons today? Let me see what Pangini has in his fancy crates.”

  Enzio helped the old man select his melons. As he dropped them in the man’s sack, he stopped short, for there at the far end of the stall was the old woman Ferrelli, draped in black, sniffing grapes. Enzio turned away from her, feeling suddenly guilty. If you should find anything, go to the old woman Ferrelli, the King’s Man had said.

  It was not unusual to see Signora Ferrelli at the stall, but on this day, Enzio sensed that she had come for another purpose, that she knew that he and Pia had found the pouch. He busied himself with stacking oranges, hoping the old woman would move on, but she did not, and at last she approached him with two large bunches of purple grapes in her hands.

  “I’ll have these,” she said, fumbling in her coin purse. Her voice was raspy, like a rusted saw scraping against metal. “You are well, antelope boy?”

  “Yes, Signora Ferrelli, and you?”

  Signora Ferrelli shrugged. “I am an old woman. I see too much. I hear too much.”

  Enzio slipped the grapes into her sack, then handed her coins back to her, refusing payment. “People trust you,” he said.

  “Eh? Trust me?” She studied Enzio’s face. “So they trust me. This is true.”

  “A good day to you,” he said.

  “Ah, that is no small thing. A good day to you, too.”

  “Cabbages?” called a peasant girl standing nearby. “Three cabbages?”

  By the time he had helped the girl, the old woman Ferrelli had vanished, but Enzio’s uneasy awareness of the stolen pouch had not.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Preparations

  The King had been spared from entertaining visitors in the late afternoon, because their arrival had been delayed, and so he had indulged in a long nap. As he emerged from sleep, with the cool feel of the pillowcase on his cheek, the King was reluctant to leave his bed. His first waking thoughts were of the gentle hermit, but those thoughts led to the hermit’s words: A thief wants what he does not have. Instantly, the King was grumpy. Now I have to sort out this thief business. Why did this thief have to come along? And then there were the impending visitors to consider, the Count and Countess Volumnia and their endless chattering.

  While the King had napped, the Queen strolled through a peaceful spot: the hornbeam tunnel, a long, winding, cool green tunnel of hornbeam trees. The tunnel, formed by intertwining hornbeam birches arching overhead, was where she went to be comforted, for it was quiet and embracing, and it was where she was often inspired. She was lifted and ennobled by the presence of these ancient trees.

  She was reminded here of her royal duties—not the mindless daily ones of attending to visitors, but those reflecting the symbolic stature of the King and Queen: to be above lowly concerns and to set an example of honor and grace. Midway down the path, her back straightened, and she moved with more poise, gliding along, listening to the warbling birds, appreciating the clean, crisp aroma of the trees.

  At the end of the path, the Queen emerged feeling refreshed, but this was a fleeting sensation, for what greeted her was the sight of the polished black carriage of the Count and Countess Volumnia nearing the castle entrance. Her spirits sagged. To erase the sight of her visitors, she shifted her gaze to the opposite direction and spotted the hermitage at the base of the hill. The Queen longed to race down the hill and through the door of the small stone enclave. She was irked that her presence there was forbidden.

  Needing to boost her spirits, the Queen vowed to acquire her own hermit, with his—or her (yes, she thought, maybe it should be a female hermit)—own sheltered cloister, to which the Queen could escape and where she could receive wisdom and enlightenment. With that resolve, she made her way back up the hill to prepare to greet her visitors.

  Prince Gianni, heir to the throne, leaned against his windowsill, absently viewing the courtyard, while the First Dresser to the First Prince was laying out the Prince’s clothes for the evening. The Prince saw the Count’s gleaming black carriage enter the castle grounds.

  “Ugh,” he murmured. “The Count arrives.”

  The Prince regarded the castle walls and the view through the gate: more gardens, a wall, the sloping meadow, the river like a sinuous snake winding its way below, and the red-tiled roofs of the village beyond. He felt a formless sensation of yearning—but yearning for what?

  His younger brother, Prince Vito, stood atop a large wooden chest in his chambers, slashing at the air with his sword. “Take that! And that!” He conjured up fearsome enemies, enormous men swathed in black. “Take that!” He cut them down, one by one. Prince Vito leaped from the chest, arms akimbo. “I am Protector of the Realm!” he shouted.

  Princess Fabrizia sat at her dressing table while her Lady-in-Waiting attended to her hair, twining blue silk ribbons among her curls. The Princess tilted her head this way and that.

  “It does look lovely, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, Princess Fabrizia, it does.”

  The Princess stroked the delicate lace on the cuffs of her sleeves. “And this lace, it is the finest?”

  “Yes, Princess Fabrizia, it is.”

  The Princess regarded her lovely self in the looking glass and sighed. “But it’s rather a shame, don’t you think, that all this loveliness will be showered on the Count and Countess? No young princes in tow, no other young people at all.”

  “Yes, Princess Fabrizia, it is a shame.”

  The Princess sighed. “What is all this loveliness for?”

  The Lady-in-Waiting did not reply, for she had occasionally wondered this herself, and she had no answer for the Princess.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Count and Countess

  Prince Vito waited in the receiving hall at the foot of the curved stone stairway. Dreading the descent of Count and Countess Volumnia, the Prince tapped his polished boot against the bottom step. He found himself thinking of the hermit, not sure why the old man had entered his thoughts. Prince Vito envied the man’s freedom from constant visitors and official duties, but he cringed at the thought of the hermit’s confined existence.

  A rustling from above announced the Count and Countess Volumnia’s preparations to descend the steps. There they were in all their splendor: ruffled and beribboned and rustling, two plump figures dressed in lime-green fabrics, the two of them resembling large, unripe pears.

  The Countess’s green velvet gown, festooned with blue and gold ribbons and ruffles, ballooned around her as she began the descent, her arm cradled in her husband’s. Her purple satin shoes corralled her enormous feet, and on her head was a green-and-blue wimple protruding at either side of her forehead like two big horns. As she beamed down at Prince Vito, her fleshy cheeks reddening, she raised her free hand in a flourishing wave.

  “Prince Vito!” she exclaimed. “How marvelous!”

  The Count, straining to balance his own weighty self as well as his wife’s bulk, was uttering various oofs and mmphs. An enormous brocaded green tunic trimmed with black velvet swept over his protruding belly and ended at his knees, revealing black tights and black velvet slippers below. On his head perched a black velvet cap trimmed with white feathers. Oof. Mmph.

  When at last they reached the bottom of the stairs, t
he Count bowed low and the Countess curtsied (with some difficulty), their full attention on Prince Vito. The Count’s words rushed out, accompanied by a full spray of spittle. “Prince Vito, what a great honor indeed, yes, there you are, how absolutely—”

  Not to be outdone by her husband, the Countess simultaneously burst forth with her own plums. “Prince Vito, look at you, how you have grown, what a handsome—”

  “—fortunate we are—”

  “—young man you have become—”

  Prince Vito smiled politely at the two green pears before him. He extended his hand to the Countess. “May I escort you into the chamber?”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” burbled the Countess. “How eager we are to see the King and Queen again, and the noble Prince Gianni and the most beautiful Princess Fabrizia—”

  “Yes, yes,” added the Count, as he followed the Prince and the Countess through the entryway to the reception chamber. “Yes, yes, our noble King, our gracious Queen, our—”

  Chatter, chatter, chatter.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Dirty Beetles

  Master Pangini pushed his chair back from the table and belched. “Clean this up, you dirty, paltry beetle,” he ordered. The master lumbered across the small room and through the curtained doorway which led to his bed, and within minutes, Pia heard his loud snoring.

  “‘Clean this up, you dirty beetle,’” she mocked. “I am not a dirty beetle.” She spoke to the snoring sounds: “You are a dirty beetle.”

  She was sweeping the floors when Enzio returned from the market. “Pia! I saw the old woman Ferrelli—”

  “At the market?”

  “I think she knows—”

  “What?”

  “That we’ve found the pouch.”

  A shiny black beetle scurried past Pia’s broom. It’s not dirty at all, she thought. To Enzio she said, “That’s not possible. You’re imagining it.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. She made me nervous.”

  “You didn’t say anything, did you, about the pouch?”

  “No, no. I said nothing.”

  “Good.” She shifted her attention to the straw mats in the corner. “Help me with these.” Once outside, as they beat the dust and dirt from the mats, Pia said, “We must be careful. We must find out more about that pouch.”

  “But how?” Enzio asked. He was suddenly afraid, and he regretted their discovery.

  “People talk. We’ll listen.”

  Enzio understood. He knew that the best talker of all, the best gossip in the village, was Franco, a barrel-bellied, blustering man who could not keep a word or a thought in his head. Everything came spewing out, like lava from a volcano. “Franco?” he said.

  “Franco,” Pia agreed.

  As they were running down the lane, Enzio said, “The master will not be happy if we’re not there when he wakes up—”

  “Poo! He was snoring hard. He’ll still be wallowing in that bed when we return.”

  Enzio could always count on Pia to reassure him. He loved that about his sister.

  The blustering Franco could usually be found perched on a stool near the bakers’ end of the market, darting his plump hands out now and then for a roll which had tumbled off a cart or a heel of bread which lay on the end of a stall. People stopped to listen to him gabble and to get the latest gossip which they, in turn, would carry off to share with others.

  It was the middle of the afternoon, a time of day when most of the market’s early shoppers were home preparing meals. It was a lazy time, when the stall workers sat on fat barrels and tilted their faces up to the sun, closing their eyes. Pia and Enzio spotted Franco on his stool, munching on a roll and spluttering a stream of words into the air at the same time. Surrounding him were several men and one woman, baskets over their arms, listening.

  “Mmf, and you know the horse lady?” Franco was saying. “The one with the big teeth?”

  One of the men made the sound of a horse neighing.

  Franco chattered on. “Where did she get that pig? A big, full-grown pig? One day she has no pigs, and the next day she has a big fat pig.”

  “Humph,” said another man.

  “I hear she blackmailed old Lonzo,” Franco said.

  “No!” said the woman. “Lonzo?”

  Franco shrugged. “What can I say? It’s what I hear. I do not know if it is true.”

  It angered Pia when Franco did this. He would say anything that came into his head, and then he would say he didn’t know if it was true, but he had already planted the seed of suspicion in people’s minds. Now, for instance, she knew these peasants would go away and pass on the “news” about the horse lady, and they would forget to say that it might not be true, and people would treat the horse lady with distrust.

  Pia and Enzio busied themselves pretending to examine loaves of bread as they listened to Franco natter away. He moved on from the horse lady to “the stick man” (a lean old fellow who slept in the streets) and then to “the goat girl” (so named because of her angular face), and on and on he went until, at last, they heard him mention the thief.

  “Thief?” someone said.

  “You haven’t heard? Everyone knows,” Franco said. “A castle thief, maybe more than one—of this I can’t be sure—and valuable things were stolen: jewels, gold, silver. The King’s Men are out searching.”

  More peasants had gathered around Franco now, attracted by the sudden buzzing of the others already there.

  “Thief? Did he say thief?”

  “Jewels? Stolen?”

  “Gold? Silver?”

  “But who—?”

  Franco bit into another roll and chewed sloppily. “Mmf. The thief, I hear—and I do not know if this is true—but I hear he is from our own village. The King’s Men will be swarming. Mark my words.”

  Circling in the air above Franco’s head was a pale gray bird with faint tinges of yellow at its throat. Pia knew this bird and her mate, the brightly colored goldfinch, for they nested each year in a tree at this end of the market. There were other goldfinches, too, but this pair Pia always looked for. They seemed different from the other finches, livelier and more inquisitive. Once, the female had landed on Pia’s foot and pecked at her straw sandals. Another time, it had landed on her arm, delicately selecting a crumb from Pia’s sleeve.

  Pia liked to watch the bird pecking for crumbs in the dirt and then lifting off, swooping and diving and warbling. Up into the sky, off into the air—where was she going? Pia often watched her fly off in the direction of the river, and then across it. Did she visit the castle, and if she did, why did she return here, to the dusty village, to nest?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Royal Duties

  When the King, the Queen, Prince Gianni, and Princess Fabrizia entered the reception chamber, the Count and Countess rustled to attention. The Count bowed low. The Countess curtsied, her cheeks puffed as if she were barely holding in the words which wanted to spill forth. It was the custom, however, not to speak until the King had spoken.

  The King was uncomfortable in his stiff linen shirt and golden brocade cape, and he could barely contain his displeasure. “Good evening,” he managed.

  As the Queen smiled at the plump pair before her, the Countess lowered her gaze. Those eyes! thought the Countess. So beautiful and so, so…unnerving. But the Countess, barely able to contain her need to talk, was not disconcerted for long.

  “We are so honored,” she gushed.

  The Count, unwilling to let his wife gain a head start on him, rushed in with, “Deeply honored and, if I may say—”

  “Always a delight!” burbled the Countess. “A deeply honorable and—”

  “—most humbled—”

  The Queen knew they could go on like this for some time, and so she made her way to a chair beside the fireplace, sank into it, and said, “How nice to see you. How very nice to see you again.”

  Now the Count and Countess beamed at Prince Gianni.

  “Prince Gianni,
Heir to the Throne of Corona, it is our honor—”

  “Our deeply sincere and humble honor—”

  For Princess Fabrizia, the Count and Countess outdid themselves in flattery.

  “How beautiful you are!”

  “Like a fresh rose!”

  “Your silken hair—”

  “You must be the envy of all—”

  The Princess accepted their compliments, but she was restless. For the second time that day, she wondered, What is all this loveliness for?

  It was not until after the long dinner, after all the courses and all the toasting and all the polite conversation, that the one interesting bit of talk occurred. The Queen and the Countess were seated at a dressing table, powdering their faces, when the Countess asked about the hermit.

  “How is your hermit?” she inquired.

  “He is not my hermit,” replied the Queen. “He is the King’s hermit.”

  The Countess was wrestling with the hornlike protrusions on her wimple. “He must be—I suppose—useful to the King.”

  “I suppose he is. I’ve been contemplating acquiring my own hermit.” The Queen was astounded that she had admitted this to the babbling Countess and immediately regretted it. She should have waited until she had actually acquired a hermit of her own.

  The Countess was intrigued. “You have? How—how—perfect! How unusual! Do you have a hermit in mind?”

  “No. I was thinking of a woman.”

  “A woman? A female hermit?”

  “Yes,” said the Queen. “I shall have a search begun—”

  The Countess clapped her hands together. “But there is no need! I know of the perfect hermit! The absolutely most perfect hermit for you!”